Harrisburg apparent new location for IDOT division

Doug Finke

Friday

Jun 27, 2008 at 12:01 AMJun 27, 2008 at 12:57 AM

Gov. Rod Blagojevich is scheduled to announce today that the traffic safety division of the Illinois Department of Transportation will move from Springfield to Harrisburg, in the far southern part of the state.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich is scheduled to announce today that the traffic safety division of the Illinois Department of Transportation will move from Springfield to Harrisburg, in the far southern part of the state.

He is making the announcement even though the General Assembly’s bipartisan Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability has yet to hold hearings on the move and take a stand on whether it’s justified.

“It’s just silly. It’s politics,” Rep. Raymond Poe, R-Springfield, a member of the commission, said Thursday. “Anybody can prove it’s not saving a dime to move them down there.”

Poe, Sen. Larry Bomke, R-Springfield, and Rep. Rich Brauer, R-Petersburg, are all fighting to keep the division and its roughly 150 jobs in the capital city.

Blagojevich and IDOT have said they want to make the move because the building where the Division of Traffic Safety is now is too expensive to rent. Blagojevich also says the move represents economic development for southern Illinois.

Critics dispute that because existing jobs are being moved, not new ones created.

Rep. Brandon Phelps, D-Harrisburg, said he wants to see the jobs relocated.

“It may not be newly created jobs, but with the way my area is, five jobs would mean something to us,” Phelps said. “I don’t wish bad things on any other (legislative) district, but I’ve got to do what’s best for my district, too.”

Phelps said a study done by Southern Illinois University showed that 100 spin-off jobs from the move would be created.

Neither Blagojevich’s office nor IDOT could immediately be reached for further comment.

Phelps said IDOT plans to move the division into the Alan Miller building that once housed a Wal-Mart. It has since been converted to office space. The building is owned by the Southeastern Illinois College Foundation, he said.

Foundation director Tracey Wyatt did not return a call seeking comment Thursday. Harrisburg Mayor Valerie Mitchell also was not available. Both are scheduled to attend today’s announcement, as is IDOT assistant secretary David Phelps, uncle to Brandon Phelps.

The southern Illinois lawmaker said he understands that IDOT will lease about 32,000 square feet in the building and will pay “half of what they are paying now” in Springfield.

The traffic safety division is in a building known as the IDOT Annex. The agency says it has 68,000 square feet that costs $1.7 million a year to lease and maintain.

Blagojevich’s official schedule for today says he’ll announce the relocation of “approximately 140 jobs,” the first time the administration has said how many of the division’s 150 jobs will be moved. Top managers will remain in Springfield.

The administration previously said it wanted to relocate the division to somewhere along the Interstate 57 corridor, with Benton often mentioned. Harrisburg, a community of about 10,000 people, is 22 miles east of Marion and I-57.

“That’s a wide corridor,” Poe said. “I’m not real familiar with Harrisburg. I still have all the same questions as before about adequate housing, education and health care (for the transferred workers). All of the other things we have available in Springfield.”

“It’s outrageous,” Bomke said of the Harrisburg relocation. “I hope and pray this governor would have some sense of decency. I don’t know that he has any decency in his body.”

By law, IDOT still has to explain in writing to the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability the economic and human impact of the relocation. It had not done so as of Thursday, said COGFA executive director Dan Long.

The commission will hold a public hearing July 31 to hear from IDOT, Springfield officials, workers and others about what they think of the move. It will then decide if the move is justified.

Doug Finke can be reached at (217) 788-1527 or doug.finke@sj-r.com.

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